Lehigh University professors want to strip Trump of honorary degree

In an overwhelming vote, faculty members supported a motion to rescind Trump’s degrees. The board of trustees has the final authority.

In an overwhelming vote on Tuesday, 83% of faculty members supported a motion that asks the university’s board of trustees to rescind the honor. More than 350 of the college’s 472 assistant, associate and full professors took part in the vote, according to student newspaper The Brown and White.

Clarification: 83 percent of *voting* faculty supported the motion. 75.6 percent of total faculty participated in the vote.

Faculty wanted to reflect that they “don’t want Lehigh to be identified with the kind of sexist, racist, and Islamophobic utterances” that Trump has made, Michael Raposa, who helped draft the motion, told CNN.

The degree was presented in 1988 when Trump spoke at graduation. The decision to revoke it now rests in the board of trustees’ hands, who took “no action” on a similar petition last year. That petition received 30,000 signatures, The Brown and White reported.

Sociology professor Ziad Munson told The Brown and White that regardless of the board’s final decision, the vote is important because, “it will be part of the permanent history of Lehigh.”